Recently Professor Vassilios G. Agelidis visited Kerala Region of India as a Distinguished Lecturer for PELS. This travelogue describes his experiences.
This spring Professor Vassilios G. Agelidis, Centre for Electrical Power and Energy, Technical University of Denmark, visited Kerala Region of India as a Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE PELS.
The Distinguished Lecturer Program included 6 colleges being Vimal Jyothi Engineering College, Kannur, Government Engineering College, Thrissur, College of Engineering, Chengannur, TKM College of Engineering, Kollam, SCT College of Engineering, Trivandrum and College of Engineering, Trivandrum.
Hundreds of students in each college was participating in the IEEE PELS and other sister societies sponsored technical program. Professor Agelidis delivered first a motivational speech in each college ensuring that the students as the young IEEE volunteers were appreciated and inspired at the same time to embrace the broad field of energy conversion, renewable energy generation technologies and power electronics to deliver the technologies that would secure powering the social infrastructure of and for the people and the society at large.
A technical talk entitled “Large-Scale Solar PV Electricity Grid Integration: Technologies, Issues, Market Integration and Impact” was also delivered highlighting the importance of such technologies especially for India where both the quality of the supply of the electricity grid and the access to electricity remain a challenge. Personal interaction with the students and academic staff of the colleges ensured that the program had its maximum impact and a long-lasting impression about the society’s contribution to the advancement of vital scientific and educational aspects of power electronics and their applications.
The society’s aim to keeping its members around the globe up to date on state-of-the-art technological developments and advances in power electronics research was successfully delivered and appreciated by all attendees. If the length of the questioning time, the number of questions per talk and the overall participation of the attendees were key indicators of the importance of such visits and their impact, then we all should be delighted. Professor Agelidis vividly remembers the last college on Saturday where the time allocated for the event was about one hour and the actual time taken due to questioning was almost three hours.
Professor Agelidis wishes to express his gratitude to all those from the IEEE Kerala Section and from all the colleges he visited for the faultless organisation of the entire visit and for taking care of every detail.
“I commend with the highest appreciation all those volunteers that made the effort to ensure our IEEE values remain strong the world over”.
